The invention relates to an endless cable winch, comprising a working cable, a driving cable pulley around at least a part of which the working cable is wrapped, a drive for driving the driving cable pulley, and further comprising an overload detection device for identifying an overload of the working cable.
Endless cable winches of this type (also called “hoists”) are widely used for transporting loads or people. Endless cable winches have, for safety reasons, an overload detection device which responds in the event of a certain passing of the rated load in order to shut off the endless cable winch and/or output a warning signal.
In the prior art, for an overload detection device, the load acting on the working cable is measured indirectly by means of a spring-loaded roller, by virtue of the travel of the roller being monitored.
The disadvantage of this principle is that the load acting on the working cable is influenced by the weight of the hanging-down strand of the working cable. As a result, the measurement result may deviate to a great extent in particular at relatively great heights, that is to say in the case of long hanging-down strands, and therefore an overload detection device based on this can be rather inaccurate.